Fox Broadcast to Launch Morning News Show

At a press conference for TV critics, FNC and Fox affiliates chief Roger Ailes announced he will be unveiling a syndicated morning news show next January. Now Fox fans will be able to get their fix without cable:

Ailes and Fox are gearing up for a yet-to-be named morning show that will air after the local news broadcasts. Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy of the Fox News Channel will host the 9 a.m. offering, which will focus on light, entertaining fare when there's little hard news.

The morning show will launch in January and will go up against the final hour of a Couric-free "Today" and newly formatted "Regis and Kelly," with a little less Regis Philbin. Since September, Philbin has been doing four days a week instead of five.

Asked if he had ever considered launching an evening newscast on broadcast Fox, Ailes demurred:

"The morning show landscape at 9 a.m. may be a little more open," Ailes said. "A lot of money can be made in morning television. And in the end, these are capitalistic ventures, and they make money because then they get to pay people and journalists get to work and we're all happy."

Ailes said he had considered rolling out his new morning show in the fall, to compete against "Today" and the others right away, but reservations about timing and marketing arose.

"We did look at the fall," he said. "That's what's called a hard launch in the fall and a soft launch in January. The hard launch gives you more time to put together more sophisticated marketing materials and line up stations, build up big hype, and do all that.

"I didn't hype the Fox News Channel coming in, and I'm not hyping this show coming in. I don't hype things coming in. I just say we are going to try to do it. It's just a style issue more than anything else."

HT: TVNewser.

In other FNC news, he network's ratings are up 34 percent from three weeks ago compared to more modest
gains at CNN and MSNBC, making FNC the fourth-ranked network on all of cable.